Numbers and Letters Fade From Stone With the Weather
by Frustration At Its Finest
Summary: She should be used to these things by now, but she isn't. She doesn't know what she would to if he wasn't here with her. She hopes to never have to find out. They find their strength in each other's embrace. Warning: Character death, angst, sexually explicit content.


AN: I do not own Soul Eater or any of it's characters, they belong to Atsushi Okubo. Warning, there is character death and sexually explicit material within this fic. If that makes you uncomfortable, read no further. Otherwise, please enjoy.

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She does not cry when she hears the news. She never knew the guy that well anyway. But it does have a strange way of putting things into perspective. Harvar was a classmate, an ally in battle, a fellow child soldier. Harvar was a weapon who looked after his meister. Just like Soul always does. She feels like an awful person, but when she finally does muster up some tears at his service, they are only falling because she keeps pasting over Harvar's name on the tombstone with Soul's.

She isn't stupid, not by a longshot. What she and Soul do is excessively dangerous. The chance of an untimely death isn't just likely, it's almost expected. This has never bothered her, because she made a promise to herself long ago that she would never leave Soul to that fate. But she knows that Ox made that same promise, or one quite similar, a long time ago, and look where that got him. Face stoic and littered with tear tracts, palms bleeding from his tightly clenched fists, chest heaving with inaudible sorrow. Her own death has never concerned her, at least she does not have to deal with the wreckage left in the wake of her passing. Dealing with the death of someone she loves though, even after resigning herself to it hundreds of thousands of times, well… the notion just fucking terrifies her.

The tears that arrive while she stands in front of Harvar's tombstone are silent, the kind that no one notices because they are all too busy with their own mourning process, and why wouldn't they be? But as she feels her throat grow raw with suppressed sobs, she feels a large, warm, calloused hand slip into hers. Another similar hand gently brushes a tear from under her eye, touch feather light as if handling soaked tracing paper. She shifts her gaze from carved stone to burgundy eyes ringed with a kind of tiredness that sleep cannot quell. Her vision blurs and she looks back to the numbers on the grave.

1993-2013

He couldn't even have a drink before he marched to his death. Then again, neither could Kilik. Jackie was down for the count by seventeen. Pattie left them at twenty-two. Death stole Black*Star by nineteen. She guesses that she should be able to deal with these things better by now.

They were child soldiers.

These things happen. It is an inevitability.

Still, every time, she cries until her eyes are nearly swollen shut and her throat too sore to speak. Soul knows better than to try to comfort her with empty promises, pretty words mean less than nothing to her at this point. Actions have always spoken louder, he knows. So when they arrive at their apartment that they have inhabited half their lives now, still dressed all in black, he walks straight to the kitchen to set the kettle on the stove. She scuffs past him into her room, not bothering to close the door behind her as she strips naked and searches her closet for something warm, and soft, and not the colour of emptiness. She finds an old threadbare orange tee shirt of his from their youth, pulls it on with numb fingers and walks back to the kitchen, steps clumsy and tired.

"Sugar and cream?" He asks her quietly, his back facing her, still clad in his slacks, shirt, and waistcoat. The words feel like a dense ball of cotton shoving its way from her throat when she replies,

"Yes. Thanks." Her voice is scratchy with disuse. He turns to her with a large scarlet mug filled with warm French vanilla tea and carefully hands it to her, making sure none spills on her and burns her. He is blowing on her tea so she doesn't get a boo-boo on her tongue. It's hilarious in the most morbid, heartbreaking, soul shattering way.

When his hands are free, he curves one of them underneath her hair around the back of her neck to pull her long locks out of the collar of her (really it's his) shirt. The silky strands slip from between his fingers and fall to her lower back. It's gotten so long, too long she thinks. It's going to bring her to her grave one of these days. She is turning to find their one pair of scissors to crop it short herself, when Soul catches her by her hand. She flinches, and he cringes, and they both avert their eyes because what do you say at times like these?

"Maka.." One word, two syllables, four letters. Her name falling from his lips in that low, cautious tone, it's all it takes to open the floodgates again. He pulls her into his arms as her entire body shakes while she weeps, her tears seeping through his shirt, burning his collarbone like a brand, a brand that forever marks him as a man who has failed to comfort his woman. What can he do though? Their friends have been dropping like flies for the past few years, he can't deny that fact. As sick as it sounds though, he is eternally grateful that she is still here, he can still see a bit of the glow in those emerald eyes sometimes, when she sees a rainbow, or a happy family.. She isn't letters and number engraved on cold stone, She is flesh, and bone, and thoughts, and emotions. Seventy-eight percent water, three of those percent now branding his skin through his shirt, her hiccupping breaths chilling the spots she has burned with her sorrow.

"H-he was just protecting his m-meister, and now he's just..just gone. Why does everyone always leave, Soul? They all always leave!" Her fists are curled into the front of his black waistcoat, her white knuckles showing a stark contrast. She likes white. It's the opposite of black. Black means death. Means madness. Means mourning. Means demons and emptiness. She's sick of that fucking colour.

She's a snuffling, sniffling mess, eyelashes clinging together, darkened by saltwater, her posture dejected. Though she is doing her best not to actively sob, her breath catches every time she tries to inhale. She tries to hold her breath to keep it from happening, but Soul just pokes her in the sides and she lets out her breath in a little huff that vaguely resembles a laugh. He pulls back just in time to catch a little quirk of her lip, and he grins, because she is who he looks to when he needs to know if all hope is lost.

He cradles her face between his hands and rests his head against her forehead with his eyes closed, trying to make her feel how thankful he is for her, and how sorry he is that people can leave so quickly. He wants to promise that he will never be added to that list of people who have left her in this world for another, but he can't. He would sign his own name on that list before anyone even scrawled out a single letter of hers.

Her eyes still closed, she gently caresses the contours of his face, memorizing the feel of his skin beneath her touch, his defined cheekbones and strong jaw. Her fingers move up to his temples to lightly massage. He almost purrs, it's been a week since he has received any positive energy from anywhere, he's been jonesing for a comfort fix.

"He didn't feel any pain. You know that Maka," he utters softly, his thumb brushing across her cheekbone, his lips following its trail. She chokes on another breath, the sound burning his nerves and making him ache.

"That isn't… This sounds t-terrible but.. it isn't that he died.. it's realizing that it could have been you. I just.. I don't know what I would do I… don't know.." She buries her face into the front of his dress shirt, arms wrapped in a vice grip around his waist as if she is trying to assimilate her body with his own, like the wants to melt into a pool of 'us' and 'we' and 'together'. He strokes her too long ashy hair, as if the simple motion could stop the sand from falling to the bottom of their glued down hourglass. He knows that nothing can stop gravity, fighting it is just tiresome, but maybe he can learn to deal with these things better. If not for his sake, then for hers.

"I promise you… I promise you that I will do everything in my power to stay with you. Until the end, we will be together. I will never leave you if I have a choice… I'm here. Right now I am here. Whatever I need to do to make you okay.. tell me." His words are barely above a whisper, face scrunched up in frustration and pain. When she hugs him tighter, he realizes he's shaking.

"Show me… please. Show me that I'm not alone.. I want to feel whole again, the way I used to before I knew how fucked up the world is. Please.." She can't actually verbalize what she wants from him properly, but he can feel it, he knows. He pulls her mouth to his, places a soft, open mouthed kiss upon her lips as he twines his fingers into the roots of her hair. He can taste the salt of her tears on her delicate lips. He licks them away, because he wants to erase the evidence of her sadness in all ways possible. She flicks her tongue out to caress his, the warmth making them both sigh into each other's mouths. She wraps a leg around his waist, and he hoists her up into his arms, their mouths still connected, and brings her to their bed, carefully placing her there, though when he tries to pull away from her, her legs tighten around him, pulling him down atop her.

She laces her fingers back into his hair to pull his neck to her mouth, stops when she remembers that she can't kiss him there..

Five black tally marks, one still tinged pink around the edges, are inked into the skin just behind his ear. They have a perfect set of five now, the diagonal strike through the other four still fresh. The sorrowful knot is back in her throat again, suffocating her, making her eyes water. Soul isn't having any of it.

"Maka. People die. You know this. It's what keeps the balance.. One of these days, I'm going to die, and so will you, and so will everyone we know, but at least we all got to live in the first place.." Her eyes are glossy as she stares at him, biting her lip to keep it from quivering. What he has said is the truth. It doesn't make the idea of living without him in her life any less agonizing though. Everything is just so out of control, and all she wants to do is fix it, make things go the way she thinks they should, but she knows that way of thinking is unhealthy. "I love you Maka. And I will stand by you as long as the world allows me to. But you need to let go… these things are out of your control. It's okay to just let go… please. It makes me sick when you hurt so much.." He has either cheek resting in his palms, his thumbs moving like windshield wipers would during a downpour, her tears are falling so fast. Her breaths stutter as he peppers her flushed cheeks with kisses. She takes the initiative to grind her hips into him, a soft moan slipping from both of them and mingling in the air between them. She wants him closer, needs to be filled up, complete.

"I am so sick of black, you know? It just reminds me of all the people that used to be but aren't anymore. You though.. your colours… you're so alive. Thank god you're alive.." She has already unbuttoned his waistcoat and half the buttons on his dress shirt, kissing his chest all over sloppily, her desperate need to feel him showing itself. She almost starts crying all over again when he stops her, but he just shakes his head, and ducks down to suck on the pulse in her throat. His hand blazes a path down her body, slipping under the hem of her(his) shirt and grazing her sex with a fingertip, making her gasp and grip his shoulders tightly. She shifts underneath him, wriggling about until she has the shirt off her body, leaving her as naked as the day she was born. The way he looks at her is so intense, it almost frightens her. He looks at her as if he has discovered the most beautiful thing in the world.

He caresses her body with just the tips of his calloused fingers, creating goose-bumps wherever he makes contact. Her nipples harden and he brushes his fingers against them, reveling in how soft her pale skin is, in how her entire body quivers at his attentions. He places a chaste kiss upon an areola, flicks his tongue out to taste her pretty pink flesh, and she moans his name, pulls him up to connect their mouths once more as she rids him of the remnants of his clothing. They stare into each other's eyes as he sinks into her, her eyelids flutter, but she's determined to watch him. They gasp, her at the feeling of being filled, and him at the feeling of filling.

He does not move for a long time, just rests inside of her, rejoicing in the fact that they are so deeply connected in every way one person could connect with another. He smiles at her, leans his forehead against hers and gives her an Eskimo kiss, and for the first time in a week, she smiles back, smiles in a way that makes his heart swell. He pulls back a little, pushes back in, and she whines at the friction, her hips rocking closer to his.

He sets a languid pace, kissing her neck, her jaw, her lips, as he buries himself repeatedly inside of the incredible warmth that is Maka Albarn. She entwines her soul with his the same way their bodies are entwined, and they pant into each other's skin while they revel in euphoria. Her orgasm sneaks up on her, hits her hard and makes her sob his name. The feel of her, the taste, the sight and sound and smell of her, they send him hurtling into his own climax. They shudder together in the aftermath, staying tangled up in each other, keeping each other warm and whole. Soul knows that someday, he will die, and he won't be able to see her like this, flushed and glistening with sweat, chest heaving and eyes half-lidded as she stares at him with absolute adoration in her eyes. So, he's going to brand this into his memory, because she will always be enough to make him feel whole.


End file.
